Last year, it was Medal of Honor vs Call of Duty: Black Ops. Activision had a nasty scandal in their hands involved with the development team Infinity Ward,losing key people and gaining a lawsuit. Meanwhile, EA laid low, promoted and released Medal of Honor a month before Call of Duty: Black Ops. The game received good reviews and sales but CoD: Black Ops made a world record a month later. The 24 hours CoD went on sale the game sold over 5.6 million copies in the US and 1.4 in the UK. The game made 7 millions sales the day it came out topping it’s predecessor (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2)  which grossed 4.7 million copies worldwide in 24 hours. Hands down, majority of gamers favored Black Ops over EA’s Medal of Honor reboot.

Battlefield 3

The series has gone all over the place; from WWII and Vietnam to fictional wars in the future and modern day. The Battlefield series put developer DICE on the spotlight so bright that EA purchased them. Battlefield 1942 won over PC gamers years ago with the multiplayer and just recently made itself recognized to console gamers with Battlefield: Bad Company. So the franchise has it’s own weight to throw around. This year, part 3 is scheduled to release and it’s powered by the new Frostbite 2 engine, a new generation of the original engine that was introduced in Battlefield: Bad Company. Frostbite 2’s visuals and audio are stunning. The particle explosions of bullet fire and buildings collapsing is breath taking. The lighting and shading has the photo-realistic detail of a pre-render cutscene.

I’m trying to avoid “It’s Super Realistic!” Because you hear that everywhere about the graphics of a game. Yes, it does look realistic but most importantly it artistically looks like a cinematic movie. Earlier I mentioned that the multiplayer was the coup de grâce for the series and I ain’t kidding. It’s very tactical involving team-based combat. You can’t go maverick and run-an’-gun everyone. It will have a class-based system and several games modes. But the focus will be on the gameplay rather than the multiplayer features. That doesn’t mean DICE is neglecting the multiplayer since they’re releasing Battlelog with the game. A cross-platform social service to text chat, voice chat and join friends games, something similar to Battle.net from Blizzard.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Call of Duty. A series starting off on the consoles and PC back in 2003 against the original Medal of Honor series, the series got so big and successful everyone knows it’s name. It’s a household title that broke record sales. CoD is sitting at the top and it’s their for a reason. The titles are chocked full of intense moments; shootouts, car chases and cutscenes that resemble a 90’s action movie. Call of Duty is sticking to it’s same formula and gameplay. Such as the different viewpoints of the plot and breaching a room with an explosive in slow-motion.

The main focus is on the multiplayer such as revamping the kill streaks and perks. One new feature is the ability to combine scopes on a single weapon. Also there is Survival mode, where you or a buddy can fight against an endless wave of enemies as they get harder and harder, a lot like Nazi Zombies but the enemies are human. It is a complete upgrade of Modern Warfare 2. Due to a certain drama and scandal with Activision this title is the first CoD that is developed with outside help so even though it might have the same tried and true formula you can expect a new flavor layered on it.

Overall, will one game be amazing and the other turnout to a be a hot mess? Not at all, both are amazing and will do impressive this holiday season. It’s just merely comparing two similar war fps franchises.